Here is a tool that we use to help in our direct hire process. When we are sourcing candidates for our clients we may be reviewing hundreds of resumes. From that review process we may have 10-12 “qualified” candidates that we want to learn more about. Sure we want to learn more about their work history and their career goals, but what I really want to do, in a very short discussion, is to assess the candidate on a handful of “critical to quality” items that are important for the client and which will improve the odds for on-the-job success.
Things that I typically look for include:
- Career Trajectory – is their career going in the right direction in terms of pay and responsibilities?
- Energy and Enthusiasm – does the candidate “sell” themselves at the appropriate level of energy for the work and the environment?
- Politeness – is the candidate polite with me on the telephone?
- Job Stability – does the candidate job hop?
Then I have some really specific criteria like:
- Hard Skills to do the job – software, hardware, etc…
- College Education or equivalent experience.
- Able to work a particular shift.
- Excellent phone presence.
We then will use several of our job specific skills testing to assess actual knowledge. We can test for almost any skill needed for the job.
We take all of the criteria and test scores and make that the left hand column of an excel spread sheet. Across the top are the names of the candidates I want to phone screen, test, and ultimately interview. I assign a 1 – 5 rating for my responses (I may even weight the criteria that are more important than others). I even have a “gut” rating thrown in a I think this is important and should not be valued, but it is clearly not the only criteria used.
We then tally the candidates scores and the top three get further consideration and or forwarded with their scores, resume, and skills testing result on to the client for selection.
It’s easy, fast, very legal, and avoids many of the common pitfalls and biases that happen in the selection process. For more information on this including a sample, please visit our Newsletter on this topic here.